Darwin Day at the University of Leicester

The University of Leicester hosts a celebration to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the 150th anniversary of his ‘On the Origin of Species’ and the 25th anniversary of DNA fingerprinting on Saturday 7th November.

An exciting day of activities and lectures is planned at the University of Leicester as part of the international celebration for the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.

Darwin Day on 7 November will include talks from renowned researchers from the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics. Professor Steve Jones, an eminent geneticist and broadcaster from University College London, will join Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys and others from the University to mark this highly significant day. The event has been organised by the University of Leicester’s GENIE Group (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Genetics) and also LIGGS (Leicester Institute of Genetics and Genome Sciences).

Professor Annette Cashmore from the University’s Department of Genetics commented: “This is a fantastic opportunity for the public and members of the University to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin, as well as our own special event to mark the 25th anniversary of DNA fingerprinting for Sir Alec Jeffreys.”

Darwin Day will begin at 10.30am in the Rattray Lecture Theatre with a welcome from Professor Peter Williams, Head of the University’s Department of Genetics. Following this there will be a series of lectures from key researchers at the University, including a talk on ‘25 years of Genetic Fingerprinting’ by Sir Alec Jeffreys. The final lecture of the day will be delivered by the leading geneticist Professor Steve Jones from University College London. He will speak on ‘Is human evolution over?’ and bring the day’s events to a close.

The event is free and open to all – all tickets for the main lecture theatre are now taken, but an overflow theatre is being made available. Contact nh21@leicester.ac.uk for more information.

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